001you good evening and welcome to the first business meeting of march 2021 of the rock hill school board and will you all please join me for the pledge of allegiance followed by a brief moment of silence under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you please be seated the local news media was notified in writing of tonight's agenda on sunday march 7th at this point can i have a motion to approve tonight's agenda thank you miss cole do i have a second a second thank you miss owens any discussion bearing on all those in favor please raise your hand all opposed motion carry 7-0 thank you so first up tonight is recognitions and i'm going to turn it over to you dr cook for that segment thank you madam chair vice chair board
002and members of the audience and our viewing committee always one of the most exciting parts of our agenda is to recognize special people special partners and tonight i'd like to do just that i'd like to ask miss jen jackson and mr claude burns if they would come to the podium for just a minute please we welcome miss jen jackson executive director for the greater charlotte auto dealers association the gcada and claude burns have burned chevrolet to be recognized for recent donation to our schools gcada represents mecklenburg union cabarrus rowan iredale gaston lincolnton catawba stanley lancaster and york counties each year the gcada makes a positive impact in our community through scholarships made possible through the charlotte auto show though they were unable to host the auto show in 2020 due to the pandemic they did
003not stop their philanthropic efforts for 2020 and were able to raise more than 372 thousand dollars wow gcada members have been so touched by the phenomenal job of educators this year and have acknowledged the tireless work to make sure children continue to receive their education both virtually and in person they understand there are times teachers purchase their own supplies to keep themselves and their classrooms safe through a partnership with harris teeter the gcada has purchased twenty five thousand dollars worth of supplies to donate to area heist to area schools harris teeter has matched the donation and assisted with distribution last week teachers in rocky will begin receiving 12 ounce hand sanitizer bottles from this generous donation tonight we'd like to honor them and thank them for their work and certainly their partnership and collaboration as
004we have enjoyed along with the other york county school districts so thank you so much and on behalf of our district i'd like to make a small presentation to you and allow you to say any words that you would like to [Music] thank you all so much for having us here this evening you said everything i think we could have possibly have said on behalf of the greater charlotte auto dealers association and certainly on behalf of claude burns who's here with burns automotive we're just so glad to be here we can't do it without the teachers the teachers are they mean so much to our organization i come from a long line of teachers personally and we just appreciate you all so much and just thank you for having us here tonight we appreciate it
005thank you please join me in thanking these fine folks [Applause] if you will turn your attention to the screen we have this fun lady over here on the screen uh carson can you hear me [Laughter] all right well carson is a very special senior at rocky ohio she has been named a 2021 national merit scholar carson is the daughter of andy and laurie clyburn and sister to colton clyburn she is from rockhill south carolina where she attended northside elementary and castle heights middle in her free time carson enjoys reading as well as competing as a gymnast with champions gymnastics in addition to being named a 2021 national merit scholar carson has received the female bearcat award twice 2017 and 2018 as well as has been named an ap scholar with honors she will be attending
006i think clemson university in the fall where she plans to major in criminal justice i know she was also considering the university of oklahoma but carson we are so proud of you and congratulations to you and on behalf of the board and the entire district congratulations and her principal mr ozzy all is here and carson i had the privilege of presenting you with one of these but we're going to present you with another one and mr all will bring this to you tomorrow any words you'd like to say to the group real quickly you don't have to absolutely and is clemson is clemson the final destination for the fall all right well we will still stay tuned to see what your decision is but again please join me in congratulating carson clyburn we're so proud
007of you uh wow we have some young men there in red that we want to recognize what some some very handsome uh folks there that we would like to again say special congratulations to this evening this past saturday quan peterson stepped confidently on the free throw line with 4.1 seconds remaining in the state championship game uh saturday in aitkin south carolina the stallions had fought their way back from an 11-point halftime deficit and nodded the score at 50 with hilton head high school when peterson was fouled the junior guard made both free throws and secured southpointe's first basketball state championship congratulations to coach melvin watson and the entire staff and all players on this outstanding accomplishment the stallions finished the season 15-5 after navigating past ac flora in overtime in the quarterfinals before beating greenville
008to advance to the state finals and our roster i'll read each of these fine young men's names chris mccullough omega blake joshua sinclair quan peterson kamari watson phillip nichols raymond generette jakari webb corinthian finch t.c collins troy frazier j.j hicklin jamar williams alex archie aj miller head coach melvin watson assistant coaches rhys logan kyle gaither nikia mccloud derek holmes barney woodson charlene watts athletic director adam hare and principal marty connor we are so proud of this fine team and i had the distinct pleasure of watching them in person on saturday and gentlemen you are impressive and we can certainly see why you won that you did an amazing job and we're so proud of you here in rock hill so please join me in congratulating this fine fine team coach watson is there anything you'd
009like to say to the group they did a great job uh i can ask for a better team these are i'm not lost at words i'm just really uh impressed and their efforts are playoffs in our season long i hope that we can continue this momentum for next year and try to make a run at it again thank you coach watson i believe uh that there are only three seniors on this team so congratulations and good luck to these seniors and we look forward to the entire team being back next year again congratulations and we'll be sending medallions for each of our students to the school to principal connor and he'll certainly uh have the time to to give those out to you but again congratulations and we're so proud of you thank you guys
010madam chair that concludes our recognitions for the evening thank you so much dr cook what amazing accomplishments by all these young folks and of course we're very very grateful for the partnership uh with the greater charlotte auto dealers association so next up on our agenda is the citizens participation our meetings are not public meetings but there are meetings held in public the board does not permit in public session any expression of personal complaints about individual school personnel or any other person connected with the school system it is however that the board may provide factual information or recite existing policy in response inquiries but the board will not deliberate or decide matters regarding any subject not included on the agenda and we have one citizen participation request tonight um i have a request from ms heather
011giles who's representing herself and she is speaking in regards to the return to five day face to face welcome up to the microphone and we ask that you limit your comments to about three to four minutes please thank you thank you and good evening i'm here as a high school teacher and parent of two students in our district who has several concerns about the return to five day face-to-face instruction for secondary students few visitors have had a glimpse inside our buildings and classrooms as they are now so let me start with some context my classroom measures 25 by 30 feet with an eight foot ceiling and two windows which do not open it currently has 19 desks with floor mounted plexiglas shields on two sides of each desk they're spaced roughly three feet apart between
012now and march 22nd some of my colleagues will have desks added to accommodate as many as 30 students in one room the same size as mine this will require removal of the floor shields additional desks added at a distance of two feet or less and adding desktop shields like this one so desktop shields like this one that are intended as a barrier similar to a sneeze guard to be used in addition to masks now unlike the sneeze guard at your local buffet these don't always get cleaned regularly and they're hard to clean they don't get wiped down the floor mounted shields have better visibility than these shields do but they impede the cleaning of floors and almost certainly impact air circulation in the room these desktop versions make it very difficult to see and interact
013in class particularly from the back of the room if you haven't tried to sit through a meeting with one of these i'd recommend you try it just for point of reference each lunch in our cafeteria where students are unmasked as they eat will go from about 240 students seated in desks six feet apart to more than 400 students seated at long tables please stop and consider what would need to be in place for a restaurant to safely operate and safely serve 400 customers at one time our hvac systems are currently running at their maximum capacity for ventilation according to the specifications shared by our operations department my classroom has approximately three full air changes per hour ashrae the governing body for hvac recommends five to six air changes for schools and six to eight hair
014changes for restaurants clearly many of our classrooms in common areas are falling a bit short on air quality and adequate ventilation this will not improve with increased occupancy experts have compared multiple code mitigation layers to or cover excuse me covered mitigation measures to layers of swiss cheese which when combined provide decent protection from infection in spite of our best efforts and intentions returning to five days means that we're poking holes in these layers of protection likely resulting in some hazardous conditions for students and staff i'm here to ask the following of you dr cook and members of the board if after spring break we experience a surge in cases similar to what we saw after thanksgiving and winter break please don't use having sufficient staff as the primary metric to decide whether or not to
015step back into hybrid or virtual many staff members will have been vaccinated so their infection and quarantine rates may be lower than that of students in the community at large the distancing made possible by hybrid schedule gave us a bit of a safety net but that disappears with full face to face and in closing i understand the difficult decisions that y'all have faced with pressure from the state pressure coming from many directions please share those pressures with us as voters and community members so that we can back you up as you make decisions to protect us protect our students protect our schools thank you thank you so much that concludes our citizen participation segment next is our consent action agenda we have two items on here it is the approval of the february 8th business
016meeting minutes and the february 22nd business meeting minutes do i have a motion to approve the consent action agenda thank you miss cole do i have a second a second thank you miss owens any discussion bang on all this in favor please raise your hand all opposed motion carries 7-0 that brings us to our action agenda and we have four items on here we will start off with policy bedb board agenda which is for second read and i believe we have dr wilkes up here to ask or to answer any questions that board may have [Music] any comments questions or such okay bearing none um do i have a motion to approve uh policy bedb board agenda for second read i believe uh ms douglas and a second by miss colt and any discussion bearing
017on all those in favor raise your hand all opposed to motion carry 7-0 this is now part of the rock hill school board policy manual um next up which is also dr wilkes um is the approval of policy bedh public participation at meetings for second read same thing here do we have any comments questions or such ms owens i have a comment um dr wilkes i know we have sort of reworked this for clarification from our last meeting but i think um we need to add um under citizen participation it seems that maybe um there's an oversight and we've left out that the citizen participation needs to address a topic that's on the agenda so allow citizens to address the board on any topic maybe insert on the agenda over which the board has jurisdiction
018and that would also match the citizen participation form which reads that way if i'm reading it correctly then i could make a motion to um amend approve as amended yes okay so i have a motion to approve policy bedh public participation at meeting second read to be amended to include the words on the agenda made by ms owens do we have any uh a second on that uh thank you brent mr faulkenberry uh any discussion bearing on all those in favor please raise your hands thank you uh any opposed mission carries 7-0 thank you last stop in this segment would be approval of policy jca and jca rule assignment of students to school for second read and i believe that is also dr wilkes do we have any uh comments or questions for regarding this
019policy no do i have a motion to prove thank you uh i believe miss cherry and i have a second from miss douglas thank you um any discussion bearing on all those in favor raise your hand all opposed motion carry 7-0 thank you and thank you to you dr wilkes last up is the approval of the jewel contingent fee retainer agreement do i have a motion to approve miss douglas uh madam chair i'd like to make the motion for june to guillotine the legalization presentation i make a motion that the board authorized a certain intent to sign the retained agreement to engage legally representation and to allow the school district to become plaintiff in the junior let uh legalization lawsuit thank you miss douglas do i have a second i think miss cherry was first
020any discussion on this bearing on all this in favor please raise your hand all opposed mission carries okay uh that concludes our action agenda next up is communications which we do not have any um so i'm going to turn it back over to you dr cook for the report of the superintendent and you have quite a bit under your segment today thank you madam chair at this time i'm going to ask dr tanya belton if she would come forward and dr john jones each year as the board is aware the district is responsible for reporting the federal programs to the board and giving an update at this time there's always the opportunity for there to be an extension of that but i also want to take time to uh to congratulate dr jones dr belton
021on a recent audit that the we went through and it was a very successful audit and so i'll turn it to dr jones to make some additional introductory comments dr jones thank you thank you good evening board chair miller vice chair owens board members and dr cook dr cook gave a wonderful introduction to the purpose week that we have come to the podium uh dr tanya belton uh assumed the role of director of federal programs right before last last fall right before we of course uh dismissed schools due to cobin 19. so she has really learned as she has worked within this position and directed but yet with all that she has is here tonight to share successes as we have applied our federal programming funding through our title programs effectively and would like to
022go through and present that to you so i do appreciate her work and congratulate her as well on the recent results we had from our oversight visit so dr belton thank you very much good evening members of the board of trustees and our community members that are here and my team members as dr jones and dr cook said i will give you a brief presentation about our federal programs as you can see on the board we had eight title one schools this past year the ninth school was our palmetto school at the children's attention home and then we also provided support to saint anne's catholic school which is one of the private schools in our district our district set asides include our parent and family engagement one of the highlights this year was our transitioning
023many of our parenting events to evening events through zoom so our title one parent educators were able to adapt their sessions with the principals and other school leaders in the building to provide that continued support even though we were not able to come into the buildings this year our title one funds also provide professional development for staff members we also provide eye excel and other computer assisted programs for our students in our title one schools additional district set-aside funds were used to provide math tool kits for students to take home for when they were able to work remotely and their teacher was still at school so that was another highlight we also provided some social emotional learning activities for parents through zoom we had a local psychiatrist meet with our parents once once a month
024to provide that emotional support during this global pandemic our schools they continued their services like we've done in the past we modified some of those structures because of the global pandemic but they still were able to provide 4k services for the students that needed we provided some summer opportunities this past year through zoom and remote learning again our schools also provided some professional development for teachers and other staff members our second title one title one part d is neglected and delinquent we share those funds with new hope and of the carolinas and we share those funds with the children's attention home this year we are using those funds to support adjudicated youth that will be returning back to our three high schools new hope will use those funds to support academic learning in their classrooms
025they also provide professional development for their staff members and they also have extended learning opportunities through software programs and other activities with our neglected and delinquent funds we have to focus on the academics which is the math and ela but we also want to provide opportunities for our students to transition into the real world and learn some work based skills three is english to speakers of other languages we use those funds to provide support through a district level coach she provides professional development opportunities for teachers she also makes sure that we are in compliance when our students move in to make sure that all of our resources are provided in the preferred language that's identified in power school we also provide support to st and catholic school they tested 20 something students this year that
026will be receiving esl services also so we are partnering with saint ann's private school with title 1 and title 3 this year title 4 student support and academic enrichment that area supports well-rounded students we also support technology and safety and security through these particular funds we support our multi-tiered systems of support coordinator and she works with the different schools to make sure that those students that need additional support whether it's through academics social emotional or behavior there are structures in place that teachers know how to provide those interventions also through this particular title for funding we provide mastery connect our teachers use that resource to provide formative assessments to students so we can get data before state assessments and they can make sure the students are mastering and retaining the content lastly title vi i
027presented that information to you in november but just some updates on the title vi which supports our students that of that are katahdination heritage we provide tutoring services for the students this semester we have an art project at rocky ohio where the teacher is teaching the students how to weave using the native american techniques and so that is a highlight this year we've had some professional development opportunities with two of the members of the nation at casa heights where they met with students through zoom and taught them different um musical techniques they taught them some history based off of based off of our catawba nation indians and indians in other parts of the united states so our total federal allocation was five million four hundred one thousand dollars four hundred and eighty dollars and seventy
028six cents for this particular school year does anyone have any questions yes ms douglas i just have one question and dr cook may have to tune in on it with the program and everything with our reassignment taking place for next school year will any of that be affected would this be affected by then or will the money follow whatever students if we have to uh move some of the students that's in the title one program so ruckus schools receive their allotment based off of the number of students that we have in the district and so that allotment is based off the number of students not based off of the number of physical buildings okay thank you justin um two questions one do you happen to know the number of sec english as a second language
029students that we have in our district and it's not that incoming hotline it can come in a hotline but we have over a thousand students but the exact number i can't tell you at this time because we just had some students enrolled last week so but we can send that to you in the hotline and then my other question is how are the students identified for the title four funding title four funding is district-wide so the state allots your title four funding based off of a percentage of your title one funding and this and i don't know that help the students that receive the the extra help for that i was just wondering so title four if we go back title iv is a district-wide program so it's not targeting specific students okay so it
030depends on what our focus is for that year last year we focused on high school and middle school for a summer bridge opportunity those students that were going from fifth grade to sixth grade and those students were going from eighth grade to ninth grade but mastery connect any teacher in the district has access to mastery connect so our title four funds support students throughout the entire district great thank you and just to kind of follow up on the request from this poll if you in that esol report could also include how many different languages that we are supporting um i know we've seen those numbers maybe three or four years ago but it would be kind of interesting to see how diverse our district is when it comes to different languages spoken yes we can
031add that to the hotline thank you dr belton i have one question too yes emergency federal funding that has been a part of the um the covet the federal code legislation does that um is that managed by your office or is that managed separately and you are only managing the the normal federal title programs that's a different office okay and miss owens i can go ahead and answer that there's a team of individuals who who manage those funds dr jones dr wilks miss smith dr breakfield miss morrison and dr campbell are all under the supervision of dr ms smith for managing that are there going to be specific special reporting auditing kind of requirements for those emergency funds or are we aware do we know and we are talking about the esser the cares act
032right there are now sr2 funds and they've added three more categories of the application so why don't we have ms smith come and kind of give an overview of those and see what uh and you can hear from where schools are participating what they're asking for and so we'll share that information in a future meeting thank you i think we've answered this probably last year when we had a similar presentation but just for people that are watching at home that probably are wondering why we have a private school you know under our umbrella for this if you don't mind just walking through that quickly why you know for example saint anne's would be included in our federal programs these are federal dollars and those families live inside of our attendance zone so the federal government
033and the state ask us to support and the private school can opt in or choose to participate or the private school can choose not to participate saint ann's had some students that met the criteria so that's why they were able to participate this year any other questions thank you so much dr belton all right thank you dr belton dr jones our next uh item under report of superintendent is our diversity equity and inclusion uh task force and i'll ask miss gina jenkins to come forward and dr belton i believe is going to stay up here with her as they co-chair this task force there are many members within the room that are currently on the task force and just really appreciate the work that this task force is doing we know that as a focus
034area number four effective organizations as well as communication with all stakeholders is really important and the culture of our district and so this task force has really taken on the opportunity to work at the district level and to bring others in subgroup committees to work on some of the the belief statements and tonight they're going to share those belief statements with you that support the board's mission and vision for the district and uh share some updates of where we're headed so ms jenkins and dr belton thank you and um we'll turn it over to you thank you dr kung all right there you are okay all right good evening madam chair board of trustee members dr cook in our community thank you so much for the opportunity to share with you our cultural competence commitment
035um this body of work has been um something that has been in progress for six months now it is so hard to believe that we actually started this journey right here um with you all six months ago where you gave us the charge of examining our district practices and identifying a plan for ensuring that we are fulfilling our mission through diversity equity and inclusion at that first meeting we shared this statement with you taken from chief justice earl warren as he rendered the decision of the court in brown versus board of education and what this statement does is it reminds us that we as public school educators are the very foundation of good citizenship in this country that is our charge that is our mission in recent months well honestly all of 2020. we found
036that that foundation was shaken we've seen social injustice through george floyd and brianna taylor we've endured a global pandemic that has been vicious for all of us but we know has also been especially cruel for members of communities of color and so if we are the people who have the power to really ensure that our foundation is stable we have to take the time to look within we have to take the time to look at what diversity equity and inclusion truly mean and we have to really be purposeful in our intent of meeting the needs of all children as well as adults who depend on the services that we provide in rock hill schools so how do we do that well we get to work so the function of the rock hill schools dei task
037force is to assess implement and evaluate evidence-based practices governing the services we provide to the community madam chair dr cook and our leaders have been very purposeful in ensuring that our work is targeted at supporting our existing mission we believe that diversity equity and inclusion are tools and because they are tools we have to be purposeful in how we use them now i was an english teacher for more years than i will say and i am still an english teacher in many ways at heart and so poetry speaks to me in a way that it communicates complex ideas sometimes in simple words and so being raised by a grandmother who was also an english teacher i heard this poem very very often throughout my life and there's one statement one verse at the very end
038where it talks about a stumbling block or a stepping stone that really shows us where we are in this historic moment in time diversity can be just that it can be a stumbling block or a stepping stone depending on how we view it so here are some terms that we're going to use because you know in education we love acronyms so when we talk about diversity we're simply talking about the presence of different variations of social identity within a group we think about equity we're speaking specifically to fairness justice of services resources experiences materials support and outcomes that are afforded to certain members of different groups but when we talk about inclusion we're talking about our goal we're talking about our mission it is ensuring that despite which identity group you assign yourself to you
039are still accepted valued engaged supported and respected within this organization so one part of diversity is simply learning we're at the stage where we are now beginning to focus our efforts on learning about one another learning about the people that make rock hill schools special we can look at these different social identity characteristics and in diversity and inclusion we often refer to these as being the big eight the big eight are great because when we see that there is a a mixture when we see there's a diversity of all these different elements we know that innovation seems to flourish we know that there's unique answers to complex problems we're able to to work harder to serve better and to truly fulfill our mission but at the same time we live in a world where these
040same social identity characteristics have really and truly helped to in some way separate us so our goal is to ensure that identity characteristics are not a part of what separate us instead they are the elements that help us to even be stronger as a people so right now because of all the things that have happened in the world everyone is talking about diversity you can find diversity training on any corner it seems if you google diversity comes up because that is the sudden the latest and greatest thing but there are certain ways there are certain things you can look at to determine if an organization really cares about diversity equity and inclusion and so what that does is it makes us really think about how do we heal from the challenges that we've experienced in
041this in this area how do we apply care so four items that we consider would be identity numeracy frequency and quality when we're speaking about the identity of an organization we're looking at the mission the vision the strategic plan the school renewal plans those elements that really communicate what an organization actually believes in when we look at numeracy we're doing just that we're counting we're counting the composition of leadership do we see women in leadership positions do we see people of color in leadership decision positions do we see variance in age and experience when we look at our leadership when we look at the number of services that we have but we also look at frequency deals with the depth of the services that we provide it's one thing for instance for a school to
042say provide three pd sessions on diversity that sounds great but if we don't see that that same content from those pd sessions is being present in our plc meetings do we see those questions about student achievement and closing the achievement gap actually being a part of the work that we're doing then the number of meetings and sessions that we just had really are not making an impact so that's where frequency comes in and then the fourth element is quality the quality of our services is the work that we're doing the professional learning opportunities that we provide the programs the services are they actually making appreciable outcomes for our students because at the end of the day that is our why so dr belton is going to share with us how we can look at our
043identity as an organization to determine where we need to go with diversity equity and inclusion so when we think about our mission statement it says that we will provide all students and the key word in there is all but before we can do it for all students we have to acknowledge the differences in our students and just because we have diversity in our school system that doesn't always necessarily equate to inclusion so when we're thinking about how we're going to support and implement this strategic plan we need to keep that in mind that diversity doesn't always mean inclusion and how do we make sure the different voices that are represented throughout our school system are heard acknowledged and honored our beliefs that belief statements are a guide for us it's a set of values that
044we can use to vet and look at different resources that we are purchasing different practices we are applying and how we can look at our hiring practices because we want to make sure that any person that we hire in the future will acknowledge and represent the belief statements that you see here on the screen any resources that we purchase in the future we acknowledge and represent the beliefs that we have here on the screen any professional development that's offered in the future we want to make sure that it is representing the beliefs and again that diversity equity inclusion we want to make sure that it's just not words because as gina said because of everything that has happened in the united states over the last 18 months diversity is the buzzword in this in the
045united states but rock hill schools will be different it won't be just words it's going to be action and it's going to take everybody in this room everybody watching on their devices at home to make sure that we are the example for south carolina and the united states as a whole so the reason why we implemented this you can see some of our data points here and our students at sunset park the kindergarteners they sang a beautiful song about three weeks ago and they said that they were on a mission that they have work to do and if the five-year-old babies recognize that shame on us as the adults in this room that cannot recognize that and when i look around this room i see many of the targeted groups that we will talk about
046in these eight identities many of us in this room are over 40 so we're automatically in a targeted group some of us are in different socioeconomic statuses so some of us are in targeted groups but again our data says that we need to put these words into action we are doing good but rocket schools will be better than what we are today so how do we do the work how do we get there well it starts with having a process and a plan which is where we are now so what you're seeing before you is our strategic engagement process we acknowledge that the work of inclusion is not something that happens organically there's some parts of it that are just having people together in a room and sharing those courageous conversations there are other parts
047where we have to hold hands a little bit more so the first step in our process is quite simply to listen listen to our students faculty staff and community members since we met with you all six months ago we've had over 32 meetings 32 meetings with district leaders with teachers with community members with both classified or non-certified staff and certified staff members to come up with the list of belief statements as we just shared with you as well as objectives and goals from there our task force creates a series of recommendations and possible solutions in response to the needs that have been shared with us we then propose those strategic engagement efforts to senior leadership which is a part of what has been done up to this point we will continue to work on in
048the coming months from there our goal is to secure approval and resources needed to implement those efforts some of the progress that we've made in this area has been that we have been afforded a great deal of training from discovery education as well as from the university of south carolina to begin to have some of those conversations on what diversity is in addition to that we've been able to partner with winthrop university for the aspire grant with this grant winthrop university has been approved as a center of excellence that is going to be something that's important to us in terms of our recruitment and retention initiatives with the aspire grant rock hill schools has been designated as a district where we will be able to work with winthrop with their best and brightest students to
049actually come into our classrooms to to fill vacancies that we have in the final semester of their program that's an exciting initiative for a variety of reasons from a recruitment standpoint it exposes us very quickly to the best and brightest but also when we talk about socioeconomic diversity and some of the challenges that students who are living in poverty have when they go into college the idea that they can begin to earn income with us very quickly is something that's very attractive and very powerful from there once we've secured resources through grants et cetera we partner with our leaders um in this with that are students and in our teams and we determine our action steps and then from there we implement and evaluate those initiatives so in the past six months we've moved through
050this cycle of listening first but also proposing strategic efforts proposing recommendations of senior leadership which have been embraced wholeheartedly and also securing resources to actually move from thought to action in our endeavors so what you see here and i know it is it is poor practice to read what's on the screen it's also probably poor practice to use small font on a screen like this so i do apologize but what you see here are a series of goals that the task force has identified what you'll notice as you review these goals is that these goals are tied to the existing board goals and what we have done is just simply infused dei into what's already there by doing this what we are trying to do as a task force is to not create something that's
051separate but to actually include inclusion in the work of the district some of the objectives that i want to draw your attention to however would be facilitating an equity audit for instance to identify factors that actually impact student and team member success this is potentially a very powerful practice for us because through an equity audit we can actually collect data on school level factors that are either closing achievement gaps or unintentionally widening those gaps when you put that kind of meaningful data in principles hands they have the tools that they need to make immediate changes and improvements and also deep in support for the things that we know that are working considering the number of students that are going to be moving from our decommissioned schools it is imperative that we do this type of
052work right now that we give principals the tools the data and the support beyond just test scores of what's happening in their building and how they can capitalize on the resources that they have available so another effort that our committee has been engaged in is taking the different focus areas and identifying dei objectives and strategies one of the strategies that i want to draw your attention to for safety and security would be to disaggregate data we want to start looking at data in terms of the social identity groups that we mentioned earlier when we talk about our graduation rate our dropout rate suspensions expulsions school related arrests etc we want to be able to look at how those different data points look across different identity groups by doing that we can create a set of
053recommendations for supporting restorative practices there's so much current resources out right now on what we can do to meet the needs of kids once we truly identify what those needs are the most powerful strategy that's in the plan that mr brown and his committee have come up with is really just to connect safety and security staff with student groups by bringing together our safety and security team with student groups we begin to break down barriers we begin to change conversations about law enforcement and about kids this is going to be powerful in terms of our personal goals as a district but also that important work that we have of rebuilding the foundation of our country the next area deals with recruitment and retention one of the um the highlights of the objectives here would be
054to really focus on how can we support our teacher cadet programs in increasing recruitment efforts that target students of poverty and students of color something very powerful happens when a student who has been living in poverty becomes an educator those educators become sojourners because they know that it is the school system it is public schools that change the trajectory of their lives they become powerful leaders there's countless research that shows that when students in poverty use education to actually break the ties of poverty it changes the course of their families history because we are a district that has over a 58 percent poverty rating or poverty percentage rather that means we have thousands of opportunities to raise a strong generation of educators if we start attracting them to the field early on so when we
055talk about recruitment going to recruitment fairs is great it's an effort that we are committed to we have been to every hbcu fair that has happened within the past six months but if we're going to get to the groundwater of our recruitment initiatives we've got to start recruiting from within dr belton as gina said the work is in the strategies that you see listed there we're thinking about supporting the diverse student populations we have we're thinking about that profile of the south carolina graduate and for our students to reach the expectations in that profile we need to make sure that all of the teachers all of the staff members whether you're a front office worker greeting that mom or that dad to the cafeteria worker that's greeting that child at lunch time we need to
056make sure everyone understands truly what inclusion means and how our words can hurt how our actions can be offensive and when we're trying to think about how to increase student achievement part of it is looking at professional development to make sure everybody understands what do we really mean by culturally relevant teaching strategies what do we mean by microaggressions because sometimes until we express it we don't even know that we've offended each other so to raise student achievement it goes back to action and it takes all of us to make sure that we are looking at those individual subgroups of students till our big body because until we move one child then we've not met the standard if note if we have at least one child that's struggling to read or one child that cannot find
057the slope in an algebra one class then there's a problem because again she was an english teacher so we're going to give her a pass but again we want all students to read that reach that expectation as long as we have 35 percent as long as we have 24 percent in this subgroup and 13 percent in that subgroup rock hill schools will not be pleased and it's again professional development looking at what of our teaching strategies that we're doing what are some of the practices that are causing some of our students not to even be in our classes do we have certain practices and behaviors that we're doing that exclude students from certain activities and certain benefits of participating in our different programs in rock hill schools and then the last focus area is communication
058with all as i said earlier sometimes our words hurt sometimes our communication with our groups is not reaching all of our groups because of a language barrier or it's because of a time issue but if we're going to say we're going to communicate with all stakeholders then we're going to have to have that inclusive mindset and it's going to have to be a goal where we're going to have to reach beyond the normal barriers or the normal circles of influence that we have we're going to have to make a conscious effort to say i'm going to go out into this group i'm going to reach out to that family group that doesn't look like my family group they may have a different setup but it's okay they may speak a different language but it's okay
059again when we think about communicating with all we think about how we're going to look at those eight identity groups and then even some of those sub categories in categories in those eight identity groups and how can we reach out to them many of us have that small circle of influence we're comfortable with the groups that look like us but if we're going to make a difference we're going to have to get uncomfortable we're going to have to step out of our comfort zone to truly put our belief statements and everything that you've seen on the screen into action so as we come to a close one of our strategies that we want to highlight is our professional learning model that was designed with dr holmes professional learning in dei is so important because if
060it's done inappropriately then it becomes a vice it becomes as something that you can check off and say that you've done it and then there's no meaningful change that comes as a result so we want to ensure that our professional learning approach starts with really helping our leaders to become competent and confident in their ability to lead from a culturally responsive standpoint so we do that by immersing our leaders in dei training that aligns to our beliefs this is one of the reasons why it is so important for us to have our own set of beliefs about dei because we have to ensure that the training that is that's that we bring into the district meets who we are as a system from there we want to work with our leaders to develop a series
061of job embedded learning experiences that are going to help to develop that cultural competence and then we want those training participants the participants that have been alongside with us to engage in follow-up conversations the dei change as ms serena williams always says is really head-to-head heart to heart so having that open training that exposure training is important but meaningful change comes from those small group conversations so our goal is that over the next 12 to 18 months that we will really immerse our leaders meaning our administrators our teacher leaders our leaders in different divisions our unofficial leaders that we know are so vitally important in getting that training and building their confidence in order to support the others in their organization as we think about professional learning for teachers we want it to be fully
062job embedded as much as possible our teachers are carrying so many different responsibilities as it is and when we just layer something else on top of their already overflowing plates without taking the time to sit beside them as their lesson planning and helping them to see how they can infuse cultural competence into their lesson plans then the work that we're trying to do really loses its impact so our focus on supporting teachers is literally just that pulling up beside them listening to what their needs are and showing them how they can continue to infuse best practices for cultural competence into the work that's already being done it is our belief that when we do that we will start to see evidence which is our goal we'll see evidence of culturally competent practice across the organization
063so dr belton so as we close i need you to focus in on that center part of that circle it's called the compass and you know i was never a boy scout but i did get some training on a compass where you remember the purpose of a conference is to help you navigate it helps you get your orientation it helps give you some direction and so as we are looking at dei and rock hill schools these questions around that circle is your compass as you're looking at whether it's a financial reason when i look at the different budgets and title one title three title four i need to look at those questions and make sure that i can honestly answer those questions and i'm asking you board of trustees when you start reading policies from
064here on out every policy you read i want you to look at the north that's the purpose of a compass it takes you to do north and that first question says provide equitable targeted communication and services so every policy you read every practice i want you to go back to this compass and i want you to be able to say yes every child in rock hill schools every family in rock hill schools every community organization that support rock hill schools we're doing everything to honor our commitment in d.i and it's going to be uncomfortable because like i said we got to step out of our comfort zone we got to reach to those people who we ride by sometimes every day standing on that corner over there but they still love their kids just like
065i love my kids but if you do nothing else if you remember nothing else that i said tonight i just want you to look back at that compass and every policy you read be able to truly answer with a clear conscious and a clear heart that nobody is being inequally served by a decision i'm making tonight or a decision i will make on in the future because the things we do now it takes 25 sometimes it takes 30 years to undo and if you're going in the wrong direction we're taking kids with us and it takes years to undo some of the mess adults create for them so again this compass here is by design is circular but notice there's a due north so if you don't have time to read all the other questions
066i want you to focus on due north and it says provide equitable targeted communication and services services so if there's a policy that that family because it's two dads it hinders them from participating in muffins with moms do we need to change it if there's a document that needs to be created but because it's five pages and it's going to take four days for it to be translated do we still send it out but again if you don't remember anything else keep that sheet of paper in front of you because every every policy you read every practice you hear from any of these team members in this room i want you to be able to look at those questions and be able to answer with a clear heart and a clear conscience that not one
067child not one family not one community organization in rock hill schools will be affected in an unfair way so i'm closing with a thank you to dr cook he's a brave man he's a brave man to have this committee put together because like i keep saying we're going to have to get uncomfortable if we're really going to put words to action i want to thank the board of trustees because you're going to hear comments you're going to hear and you're going to see and your work has never been easy so it's definitely not easy in a global pandemic and it's not easy when we're talking about diversity equity inclusion and all the different committee members that's around the room watching on the screen thank you for your great conversations because you all pushed us to
068create this document and we had some tough conversations we had some real tough conversations because remember there are eight identity groups and even within those divinity identity groups you have sub categories so trying to put myself in another person's shoes is hard but again the committee members who participated in the five focus areas thank you so much for the time you committed the research you did and putting this great product together does anyone have any questions um i have a question yes um and it's about our choice programs i have long been concerned that um our choice programs are not as inclusive as um as they should be as i think all of us would like them to be um and i think that has is particularly manifest in a school like cherry park that
069doesn't have an attendance zone where every student that goes there has choiced in did the group talk about choice programs in particular and is there a um is there a will among the group to develop some strategies to bring back to the board that might involve some policy changes to help us have more inclusive representation in our choice programs yes i think that's a great question the work that the committee has done so far in that area is looking at communication because we believe that sometimes when parents don't really realize the opportunities that the district is providing to them then those opportunities can be missed so michael frost and the committee with serena williams they have been very focused on looking at how can we be more diverse in our communication approaches to make sure
070that we have a larger pool of parents and families that are engaging in the choice process that are completing our surveys and giving us the feedback that we need there is definitely a willingness and an interest in exploring that even more we have not coined a specific objective that deals with choice but i think that's definitely something that we need to look at and that i'm sure we'd be open to exploring and and in addition to communication which we've sort of talked about before and ways that we can do outreach to really bring that message to all people all parents in rock hill thoughts on how we might do placements in choice programs other than just a lottery so that we help create a diverse student body in all of our choice programs and i
071don't know how that would look i don't know what other school districts have done but i am very interested in any suggestions that can come out of your committee that would help us to to bring diversity equity and inclusion to all of our choice programs well thank you thank you so much for presenting us with that that is something that i've heard dr holmes personally speak on before i know that's something that she is going to continue to look into there are some things though this is a some this is something where there are some solutions there are some best practices there are some opportunities to actually make that happen so that layer of change is not beyond our reach which is exciting so when we do our next report i do think we can
072bring back some information on how we can do that as well as some examples of how that looks in other districts as well and i look forward to any policy recommendations that you might have so that the board can you know take whatever action is necessary to promote that thank you so much with the equity audit is there an equity audit tool that you all have already identified for us to put in to place because i'm sure if we googled equity audits there's all kinds you know is there something that y'all have done research that something is ready to be put into place for that great question and so we have started doing some research and you were right google it and there are a million different ones and with varying levels of effectiveness as
073you can imagine where our committee has landed under dr cook's guidance is that we are actually looking at possibly bringing in a consultant to come in to do the equity audit for us we would go through an rfp process because there are so many different vendors that are out there that are using this as a product but one of the the vendors that we've already started looking at beginning to have some conversations with are those that have actually done this work in other south carolina schools before those who have the ability to work with principals to actually customize the tool and the reason that's so important is because with an equity audit the outcomes will look different from school to school at school a the factors that might be influencing the achievement gap might be
074something that is completely different from school b so if we want this to be something that our principals actually can benefit from having on hand and using we want them to be able to sit down with someone to actually design the tool themselves instead of just giving them a packaged products so after we get through this phase and we finalize our conversations with dr cook and senior leadership about our plan our next effort that we're actually looking to begin with in the next two weeks is developing an rfp for a consulting company to come in to do the equity audit awesome thank you um and next question i love the call me mister program yes and i know that our district actively works with the call me mister program to get those teachers um or
075students teachers do we have any kind of program where we get some of these um call me mr leaders working with our students doing programs for our young men who should be the the misters um because i know that we have actually had some of our our students graduates who who have gone on and been a part of that program so absolutely one of our objectives is to increase our minority recruitment efforts and so call me mr goes under that umbrella there are lots of different opportunities that we see a lot that dr campbell has been even exploring years before the dei initiative came on board and a if this was not a year we're dealing with covet we would actually have a call me mr day where we invite the misters in the surrounding
076area to come into our schools to introduce them to our leaders to allow them to see our campuses and our buildings we've also had conversations about having some of the misters come in to volunteer with some of our summer programs as well so with call me mister that is an area where every district that is aware of the program is actively recruiting those students and what we have learned is that the key to actually connecting those students with rock hill schools is letting them have experiences in the district before hiring season starts so whereas we'll continue of course recruitment fairs etc our goal for attracting them is to really bring them in to be a part of our family before they reach their senior year in school thank you so just a few comments first
077of all um i want to say thank you to this committee um just like you stated this is not easy uh it is going to at times probably be some uncomfortable conversations but that's part of the process somebody once said no pain no gain and i think that that is you know exactly where we're at here you know when we have our goals as a district and we say all students and all staff that's truly what we mean so now we may need to make sure that our policies and practices actually reflect that statement um and because of that the work that the two of you and the rest of the folks on that committee is doing is extremely important um what i'm hoping to see as as this committee continues to do this work
078is that we engage the community as well because when we talk about this you know this is not only rock hill schools this is our engagement with the community and we have to do it as a unified group and not in silos so i'm hoping to see maybe an opportunity for community members to serve on maybe subcommittees and those kinds of things as you get further down the line in some of this work [Music] and i think my last point is i am a boy scout and i really really do like the analogy of the compass and and and having that um um kind of north guiding you um and and what i was going to ask dr cook is would it be possible for us to print up a version of this and maybe
079use that as one of the artworks in the boardroom so that we can see it during our meetings jenkins respond to that because i know she knows the answer yes um it's interesting that you should say that um dr cook has a beautiful vision in his mind already for how we can actually um print the compass off and not only share it with the board but also share it with teachers and in every classroom etc because if you look at those questions those questions are our beliefs our beliefs are what should be our compass if we believe that those beliefs are what's good for all kids and all of the adults who depend on our district then our decisions have to align with those beliefs so we are very excited about the beautiful artwork that
080dr cook is working on right now glad she's laughing and smiling but yes ma'am to your question yes absolutely phenomenal yes ms douglas there are no classroom teachers on there is there a reason or you feel like the training is more for them than to be involved in it or what good question so we do have classroom teachers that are on our committee i'm miss carlo dawson she's here she's one of our committee members as well so the steering committee um was composed primarily of district leaders that dr cook selected what we did from there was we set up subcommittees for each focus area and then within those subcommittees teachers have had some opportunities to join into those committees but with the committees being small there hasn't been a lot of room for a lot
081of other employees and even some of our non-certified staff to get involved so representation is there those voices are there and they're reflected in that list of the different people who've been a part of the committee but as we grow and now that we actually have a plan we have the opportunity to open it up to more so how total effect good question so we're moving now we are moving now i'm working on that rfp with the equity audit that's something that's going to begin in the next two weeks looking at some of our professional development and identifying teacher leaders as well as district leaders to go through that first phase of professional learning some of that work is going to begin at the last week of march we'll have some other pd opportunities to
082start bringing that group of core leaders together in may as well so immediate change immediate things that you can see from the committee would be professional development for our early childhood programs and those services as well as the discovery education training for our administrators leaders and teacher leaders and you know what my next question's gonna be with the teachers and others going through all this training is there any possibility wherein they could receive recertification credit oh i'm so glad that you asked that um one of our objectives for the recruitment and retention committee is to for every teacher to use um to have some dei components in their slos and their professional growth and development plans the reason for that is if it is included in the plan then they can receive recertification credit so
083yes our teachers have they're engaged in plc meetings on a weekly basis but if it's a part of their professional growth and development plan to explore closing the achievement gap with african-american males and they're in their plc meetings and they're researching that topic and they're talking about it then we can actually give them renewal credit for that because it's a part of their plan so that's one of our objectives is to ensure that they get credit for those job embedded experiences okay i just with all the hard work i just want them to receive something i agree it costs too much to take a class and nowadays yes it does i agree wholeheartedly yes ma'am so another quick question would be um are we planning on um setting up a segment on our web page
084um to to kind of talk a little bit about all this work that's taking place and and also so that the community because obviously this is an ongoing project you know this is not a committee that that really has an end time because i don't think that the work is ever going to be completely done it's a process right so i think it would be great for us to be able to have an opportunity for the community to to keep themselves azure as to what what's happening with the committee and also know who's on it and and so forth yes yes absolutely so we have um talked about having a landing page on our website um you all were received the actual dei plan and hotline so our intent is to have that plan posted
085on our website it's going through translation right now so it'll be translated in three different languages as well as having an audio recording so it'll be accessible to anyone in the community who wishes to read that document perfect anybody else so let's give them i'm sorry i just wanted to thank you for all of your hard work i truly enjoy that information and has had the opportunity to observe the mr program and i will be thoroughly happy when that that comes to town and working with our male youth and hopefully we can have some similar programs started with our females absolutely i truly thank you for that well well thank you for this opportunity it does take bravery on your part to even open the door for us to have this conversation so thank you
086i want to say thank you to um to dr belton and miss jenkins they've given me way too much credit tonight especially when it comes to anything create creatively i don't have that kind of uh those kind of juices but i do want to just to to say that it was important for the board to hear and to support the belief statements which is a lot of what was presented this evening as a support of the mission and vision of the school district i know this board and many of you have participated in trainings miss miller hasn't acknowledged but she has recently participated in a diy training herself as the board chair and it is about every child and every staff member in our district feeling value feeling respected feeling like they can contribute no
087matter who they are where they come from or or what have you and so we look forward to that work continuing and for working collaboratively together we also benefit from them from the work that has been done prior to us that we ride the backs of those who have been in this district who've been doing this work this is a great community and it truly is just a continuation of one team on one mission for the greatest rock hill that we can provide and we've got a great school district and a great community and we just want to keep getting better at it so i want to say thank you to the task force uh and we'll continue to expand those who want to be part of this work so ladies thank you so much
088thank you thank you i will ask mr brian vaughan if he would come next mr vaughn shared with you in our previous meeting some of the bylaws and guidelines that the district has developed as we work on academic programming and some of the other presentations that have been shared with you this evening of driving decision making about our facilities and again having a lot of opportunities to be proud of what we have but mr vaughn has taken some of the feedback from you from our last meeting and then wants to share that and then certainly allow for the board to give additional feedback this evening so mr vaughn thank you for the work you've been doing on this thank you good evening in your board package you have been provided the updated facilities planning team
089bylaws and guidelines and you can see that during our previous conversations that the changes are in red since our previous board meeting on february 22nd the on the blue represents the changes that have been made and we have also provided a potential facilities planning team roster for your review do you have any questions mr burns mr bone i was just wondering i asked you a few questions earlier today um yes sir how many people do you have on this committee currently it would be 49 i mean 49 members and then an additional five for resource non-permanent members that's a that's a lot of people and meet what once a month you said yes sir is it is it more of a convention or a committee more of a committee you think so you actually get
090stuff done with 50 people in a room yes sir okay i'll just it just seems like i've been in charge of a lot of meetings and having with 50 that many people haven't that much input i mean it'd be tough to order lunch so i was wondering if maybe we look at chipping it down and getting some local community leaders maybe some people from the city and actually really streamline this thing and hopefully get something that moves a little quicker okay thank you for your input mr falkenberg well i know that uh one of the concerns i have is having been a former member of this this committee um you know they do amazing work there's no doubt about that um but it does feel like when you look at the the roster you know
091that could go anywhere from 50 people to 60 people and that's just an awful lot of opinions in one room when you're trying to hammer out some some details and you know as we just talked about inclusion i think we need to make sure that we're including all of the representative groups in our community and when you look at this particular composition over half of this group are educators in the education field and i don't know that that's right i don't know that it's wrong but i do know that when i look at it there's only three spots out of 60 designated for business people and that to me is is not a good makeup because at the end of the day the business community are the people that pay the majority of our taxes
092that go to fund our district and i think that if we ever have to do a bond to approve these recommendations we're going to have to have their buy-in and with only 3 out of 60 designated as business type folks doesn't mean that you couldn't be a parent on here and be a business person but you know it's ensuring that there's three business people that seems you know very low from my perspective so again i would agree that i would like to see a much smaller number of people but make sure that we have a strong diversity in those numbers because at the end of the day if we're only listening to one group of people we're always going to get the same answers and so i think that as we try to make it
093more diverse but with less overall people that would be my goal anyway that's what i would like to see out of it thank you yes mr robin and i hear what mr burns and mr falconberry are saying i i do know from our last um um foray into um into talking about a bond and dealing you know and getting communication from a committee um you know one of the things one of the feedback that one of the opportunities for feedback that i had often in the committee was how many how many teachers how many school level personnel you know were involved in the committee and what kind of feedback you know did we get from them you know it seems to me that when you are talking about the condition of buildings and the need
094for buildings you really need feedback from the people who are who are dealing with that every day and i just don't see that you're going to get a more clear picture of what's needed than you do from the people who you know are actually working in the buildings and essentially delivering the service that we provide which is education so and and i can see that 50 people on a committee is a lot of people on a committee but i do think it's important that we have a representative group of people so that we have people in the room who are actually working in these buildings and delivering our services every day but we do have to have members of the the community because we do need their feedback and support because these are the community
095schools so i i don't know how to strike that balance but i certainly want to make sure that we have our our teachers and our school level folks well represented on this committee um so that you know we get their insight which i think is you know the most important insight in and the needs of our facilities i strongly agree we do definitely need teacher insight but i don't want to see this turn into our neighbor across the river has 600 million dollars in debt that's going to drive if we're waiting we're in so much better shape than they are right now 600 million dollars in debt they're charging each new house 28 500 or an impact fee you know with commodities shooting up through the roof and this this it could it's going to
096blow up in their face so we have got to be conservative in this aspect we definitely need teacher input but i do not want to see our see this budget gotta control when taxes being raised and i agree i don't want to see our budget out of control either and and i think that um you know what we see in fort mill are a lot of new schools that need to be built um and and so they're sort of dealing with what they have to deal with to accommodate the the student population that they have but we know we have old buildings and we're going to have to be very smart and targeted about the way that we spend that money of course but we've they've got the past two years in a row they've
097got a 15 million deficit per year with 28 000 500 impact fees going to each new house being built say that and say the housing industry shuts down 20 they got a problem a big problem and we don't need to we don't have to follow that we need to be look at this and have community leaders community people in the community as well as teachers have all the input but we don't need 50 people in a room trying to get their bite of the pie and i think that you know there is a valid point in in what everybody's saying but but when you look at trying to build consensus as far as recommendation i mean we sometimes have issues with five people ordering dinner at my house much much more having 50 in a
098room i think that you know maybe try to structure it in the way where you have subcommittees where you have a spokesperson could still allow you to have the input but some of that work is done prior to them going into the actual committee meeting and still you know not cutting out any of the segments but it will make whoops make it a little bit more condensed because i do think it's going to be hard to have engageful and meaningful conversation with that many people in the room um and again you know i think we need to be very realistic and say that we're rock hill and we will make the best decisions for rock hill and we can learn from you know good or better and different from around us but either way we're
099our own community and and we're strong in our own minds and we will we will we'll do the right thing for our communities so but that's my suggestion maybe try to divide it up to subcommittees to still have the input but not bring so many people in the same room sure i would be more than happy to work with dr cook in administration and we will bring something back to the board all right perfect i think that brent has just commented i think that that's absolutely the right way to go is with the subcommittees because you can get 50 teachers or 50 community members or 50 business people in a subcommittee if that's what you want to have that many and then come to a strategic planning meeting where one or two people are representing
100those groups that's where i was trying to go i didn't say it quite as well is that i want us to be diverse i want us to be representative but we don't have to have every one of those people on a board on a committee where they're i mean strategic planning should be you know thoughtful it should be representative but it also should be succinct and not necessarily as mr burns said a wish list of everything that is humanly possible if we had unlimited funds because if we did we'd all have very different buildings i'm sure but you know again when i look at the the makeup you know we're talking about capital you know projects we're talking about construction projects we don't have a single construction firm on here we have a director which
101isn't somebody we have on staff today but that would be someone representing the district we don't have anyone saying hey this is how much we think that would cost if we were doing that to be able to give us some of that insight and cost benefit analysis we don't have any facilities outside facilities consultants you know that are listed in here those people exist in our communities i mean to me we just need to have better resource you know a more representative resources of what we're trying to achieve but also what's in our community and i think the subcommittee's is is certainly a way to do that with some of the bigger groups i think that also sounds like a reasonable plan to um get a lot of voices in the room i do worry
102about including too many third-party um voices that that may have an interest in a building plan that we ultimately might approve um i had some concerns about that last time that we had the pathfinders committee so i'm not sure how you strike that balance by getting expert level opinion without um without making it seem a little like home cooking for lack of a better way to express it and we did have a conversation with our procurement department about that and um under b with resource members there is a line that we did try to um kind of balance that so thank you yes ma'am okay well thank you so much and and we really do as much as we have a lot of feedback we really do appreciate the fact that the bylaws are being
103reviewed that we're trying to come up with a more um improved process and and a committee that will serve our district well so we we recognize that there is a lot of work behind that absolutely um so thank you for that absolutely thank y'all yes ma'am i'm hoping when we think about the groups and everything bringing in that we're not going to just look on one side of the town that needs to have committed people that represent the entire right here from all areas and sections i will promise you and assure you that we will do that thank you and i think that that goes back to the compass you know and having the conversation that we just heard from dr belton and dr jenkins that you know inclusion means inclusion in every facet of
104the of of the of the process and this is certainly one of those so yeah thank you mr vaughn also want to say thank you to the board for this conversation and all that we're trying to do and and that we're making great strides and i think certainly the academic focus we've heard the diversity you know components so i think i hope the board can see again we're moving in the right direction want to be as inclusive as possible and yet meet the needs of our children and maintain a fiscal sound budget as well at the same time so thank you all for having that conversation and we'll continue on uh it is uh time for some announcements this evening that i'd like to share with our board and community uh just a reminder that
105kova testing continues in our schools for our students and staff who meet that testing criteria do want to remind everyone that this thursday march 11th students will have an early release day followed by a march 12th teacher professional development day we are working with our teachers to work in the places and spaces that they can be most productive that are looking forward to a great day of professional development and want to thank the board for the early release day that you supported in our calendar for thursday we also have our next board meeting on monday march 22nd and of course as all meetings are live streamed and on demand following each broadcast and we invite the community to stay engaged with us a very special program you've heard dr jones speak to in in past
106and that is the works career development program he and ms jane morrison our director for secondary schools have been working with the city of rockhill for our high school students to participate in the program students will be working and learning alongside many of our county government leaders city government leaders and services such as our safety parks and rec housing electricity law enforcement among just a few to name this week it will be tomorrow wednesday and thursday and we certainly are appreciative of the experience for our high school students as we know that this will be a great opportunity for them our next item on our agenda is our return to school plan i did share with our community last week that we would be looking at our march 22nd so as we have previously shared
107we continue to evaluate our instructional model in two-week increments using multiple factors those are certainly included in our return to school plan the district and our community have continued to see a drop in covet 19 case numbers we continue to see that and looked at those numbers again this morning our numbers of students and staff testing positive and numbers of individuals in isolation and quarantine have significantly decreased over the past two weeks and we remain optimistic and hopeful that the numbers continue to decline and really want to say how much we appreciate that our community and want to continue to encourage to do so we successfully and safely transition our elementary students back to five days in october while our middle and high school students remained on an alternating a b day schedule until the
108start of second semester when a shift to five-day continuous learning began i really want to thank our teachers and administrators who have made that work with our instruction department and i've gotten a lot of feedback on that last week we announced that all our middle and high school students would return to campus on monday march 22nd for five days a week in person learning this transition does not impact students currently participating in the rock hill schools virtual academy families may seek an exemption to the return to school five days a week face to face through an application and review process led by the instruction department exemptions will only be granted for students of families with documented health conditions or concerns families must complete the application for kevin 19 high risk exemption which can be found
109in the parent communication that will be sent out by the district tonight and will be listed on the website providing a safe and healthy educational environment for our students and staff remains the district's top priority and we continue to monitor the situation in our community and make any adjustments needed while we're seeing the positive changes occurring now we will have plans in place should the situation in our area worsen and the need to return to a hybrid or remote learning model arise i'll ask ms sadie broome where in the world did i get sadie broom from i have no idea miss carrell except i work with a sadie broom in another district so that's the only connection that's sadie carrell my apology and and maybe um uh miss carrell will forgive me as she knows
110how much we value her in this district and she has worked tirelessly with our school nurses to do such an amazing job with our administrators our teachers i know the board is somewhat aware through my communication to the board on how much work went on last week to work with our teachers our administrators have been absolutely amazing to schedule to work with us collaborate with us and to get our staff vaccinated and took several days i really want to say a special thank you to piedmont medical center mark nosaka the city of rockville mayor john gettis our dhec board member rick lee alton hyatt and laura hyatt swept and the staff at good pharmacy if it not been for these folks and partners working with us we i'm not sure where we would be but
111we wouldn't be as in good shape as we are right now but i want to say thank you to all involved and i want to say thank you to the board members who've also had an opportunity to go and volunteer at the clinic as well but we did move to phase 1b today in the state of south carolina and i know ms carrell will speak to that and continue to talk about some of the numbers that we've experienced but miss carrell on behalf of the district on behalf of the community thank you for all that you and our nurses are doing with our staff and our principals and and teachers as well so i'll turn it over to ms carrell to share some additional information and then any questions that the board has we'll take
112at that time thank you dr cook i appreciate those kind words um yes we were we had a wonderful week last week on wednesday thursday and friday we were able to send different groups of our staff and our schools to the community clinic vaccine clinic out at the galleria and to good pharmacy to in order to receive the kevin 19 vaccine they both clinics had trouble filling their appointments with one a um eligible individuals and so they opened it up to our teachers and surrounding district teachers we had a total number of 1646 staff that requested the vaccine so when we sent out a survey when it's time would you like to and and that is our total as of this morning people were still filling it out over the weekend so we will continue
113to add them to our list and and try and help them if they would like find a place to be vaccinated uh since we started and we started with our oldest group first so those employees that were 70 and older and i've told you guys about those several weeks ago but from then until as of now we have vaccinated 1272 of our employees now there are several reasons that we aren't at 1646 some of those if we have employees that had covered 19 there's a waiting period for them to get the vaccine after they had a covenanting infection if they're in quarantine they can't receive the vaccine some of them have just asked they just wanted to wait and that's okay we're going to keep them on our list we will keep providing them the
114opportunity as those come available to us but we we have in the in our list that we're still double checking from wednesday thursday friday because it was kind of a whirlwind where we sent almost about 900 people to different sites to be vaccinated we should have about 121 people left so we had did have some teachers that went to north carolina to receive theirs we're still collecting those those those are kind of straggling in for people saying i don't need take me off your list mark me down as yes i don't need to go to one of your clinics so we have made some good progress we are very thankful uh like i said and dr cook said to the community clinic the city of rockhill piedmont medical center good pharmacy for allowing us to
115to take this first step and get this first dose of our teachers vaccinated we have about one two three four seven different dates for for second doses because that's how many opportunities we've provided thus far to our teachers and they should all be the ones we have vaccinated thus far will all be vaccinated by april 2nd the friday before spring break so when we come back from spring break the vast majority of them will be fully vaccinated we will continue to work with the staff that have requested the vaccine that need to wait to get it we will work with them on where they can get that we likely will not hold another mass clinic like we did at good pharmacy on friday other than the second round we will do that but we will
116work with the city piedmont good pharmacy to get the rest of our folks vaccinated yes ma'am um first i just want to thank you and our community for taking care of of our teachers and staff um what about our contract workers through kelly services and things are we working with them they were all included allied security kelly services our food service workers sfe all of our vendors people that come into our buildings to help run our schools they were all included in our survey so if they completed the survey they were included in our vaccine opportunities okay thanks all right i think that's all i have thank you thank you madam chair that that concludes all the reports of the superintendent for this evening thank you dr cook um [Music] so next up is the
117review of the school board work sessions which we did not have one um number uh after that would be other and future business uh we don't have any of that either so next up is executive session for receipt of legal advice i suggest we take a five break prior to going into executive session um but can i have a motion to adjourn the open session and enter executive session for the following reasons a receipt of legal advice following a five-minute break thank you mr burns do i have a second thank you miss cole uh any discussion bearing on all those in favor of pissed motion carry 7-0 let's get back in here you